Seasonality modulates habitat cover effects on avian cross‐boundary responses and spillover

Abstract

Species cross-boundary response is a key mechanism affecting species spillover into agricultural fields. However, temporal changes in edge permeability, which may depend on the seasonal availability of resources in both matrix and native habitats, remain poorly understood. Here we tested how edge crossing behavior and the associated spillover of birds into sun coffee plantations respond to landscape structure and seasonality. We monitored the movement of six insectivorous understory bird species (four forest specialists and two forest generalists) using an automated telemetry system along a gradient of forest cover (7-60%) during two seasons (dry versus wet) at nine sampling sites at the Brazilian Atlantic forest. We monitored 116 individuals and obtained a total of 15 129 bird detections across seasons. Bird resistance to crossing edges was strongly driven by an interaction between seasonality and forest cover in the surrounding landscape, with higher resistance to crossing edges along the dry season and in landscapes with lower amount of forest cover. Furthermore, spillover patterns in plantations were driven by an interaction between forest cover and distance from forest edges, but this was most pronounced for forest-specialist bird species. Forest specialists moved more intensively and farther from edges in more forested landscapes, whereas forest generalists showed similar patterns of occupation regardless of forest cover and isolation. Our study contributes to a better understanding of avian cross-boundary responses and spillover in response to landscape structure across seasons, and the factors driving bird movement decisions in anthropogenic landscapes. There are a myriad of possible mechanisms governing movement decisions, and these mechanisms may interact in complex ways and remain important foci for research within the fields of tropical ecology and evolution.

Ecosystem engineers cause biodiversity spill-over: beavers affect breeding bird assemblages on both wetlands and adjacent terrestrial habitats

“…Examples are known of spill-over as cross-habitat movements of organisms, e.g. woodland birds or pollinators that move to adjacent open landscapes, which increase diversity and enhance the flow of beneficial ecosystem services such as pest control or pollination (Boesing et al, 2018; Boesing et al, 2022). Moreover, it is likely that the spill-over of biodiversity into areas adjoining beaver wetlands will lead to a parallel spill-over of ecosystem services.…”

Forest cover and environmental type shape functional diversity of insectivorous birds within the Atlantic Forest

“…Studies on how habitat reduction and fragmentation have been affecting the arrangement of biological communities (ecological drift) and species responses (environmental filtering) have become increasingly common (Morante-Filho et al 2015;Boesing et al 2017;Pardini et al 2017;Adorno et al 2021). However, the role of anthropogenic landscape matrix as a modifying agent of community assemblies still unclear, and the results of habitat loss in communities composition, ecological functions, and ecosystem services provision are barely known (Kupfer et al 2006;Pardini et al 2017;Medeiros et al 2019; Barros et al 2019a;Larissa Boesing et al 2022). A landscape perspective is required to understand the effects of agriculture land use on the biodiversity and ecological processes (e.g., arthropod predation (Tscharntke et al 2005;Turner et al 2013;de Souza Leite et al 2022).…”

Increasing landscape heterogeneity as a win–win solution to manage trade-offs in biological control of crop and woodland pests

“…However, this patch-matrix paradigm is now considered outdated 35 , 36 . Indeed, land cover types surrounding forest patches are likely to influence biodiversity occurring within these patches 37 , including forest pest’s natural enemies such as birds 13 , 38 . For instance, crop fields and grasslands are likely to provide complementary resources for bird predators occurring in small forest stands 39 – 41 , and to influence the spillover of arthropod predators from crops and grasslands to forests 39 , 42 .…”